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President Obama deserves credit for his candor. He admits that we tortured people after 9/11, and that our actions violate our highest ideals as a nation. But apologies are hollow if they are not followed by attempts to make amends. "Sorry" is a lie if it is only a word. President Obama needs to prosecute.

Less attention has been paid to the émigrés who worked on behalf of peace and reconciliation in former Yugoslavia. These activists supported peace organizations in the region, helped to spread the word of human rights violations, and worked in large numbers for international organizations, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague.

Mr. Obama, in ruling out prosecution for torture, may have thought he spared us bother, but actually he did us harm. By casting accountability into limbo, he makes possible government-sponsored torture in the future and prevents America from recovering the thing most precious: our good name.

Author of 'Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq,' and of the chapter on 'Obama At War' in the book, 'Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader.'

Colombia is in the midst of historic peace talks. Many difficult challenges have been addressed, but a number of thorny issues are still on the table. A key point left to be settled is that of criminal accountability for the most serious crimes committed during the country's 50-year internal armed conflict.

If "Never Again" means that the world will mobilize to stop mass atrocities -- genocide, torture, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity -- then the integration of an exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum showing ongoing crimes in Syria that rise to that level belies our commitment to such a slogan.

The ECCC, on balance, is a major success for international criminal justice. The longevity of the international human rights and rule of law movement depends on building on such successes, while understanding the challenges in their context.

War allows men (and sometimes women) who would otherwise live within the rules of civilized society to become animals. But for the most part, animals do not display the calculated and indiscriminate savagery of humans, who are not killing to obtain food.

In 2012, the Obama administration issued a US strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa with a stated objective to promote and protect "human rights, civil society and independent media" as an integral part in strengthening democratic institutions on the African continent.

It seems that most people on either side have lost the emotional ability and space to recognize the humanity and suffering of the other. While this is understandable, it is still critically important to do our best to keep the emotional space to process and empathize.

With ongoing rocket attacks on Israel and unrelenting retaliatory airstrikes in densely populated parts of Gaza, both Hamas and the Israeli government appeared to be potentially violating the fundamental laws of war.

More than three years after peaceful protests were met with deadly force by security forces and the situation devolved into a civil war, the suffering of Syrians across the political spectrum has been prolonged because politics trumped peace and security, impunity prevailed over justice, and a system of international governance and its leadership failed.